It is common for individuals and businesses (hereinafter consignors) to send mail pieces to P.O. Boxes. It is likewise common for consignors to ask commercial carriers (e.g. UPS) to facilitate the delivery of mail pieces to P.O. Boxes. However, the consignor often does not realize that only the United States Postal Service (USPS) is authorized to deliver mail to a post office box. In other words, only the U.S. government is allowed to physically place mail into a Post Office Box. Thus, in the past, when a commercial carrier received a mail piece addressed to a USPS Post Office Box, the commercial carrier would typically have two delivery options. The first option was to find an alternate consignee address. To do so, the carrier would search for an alternative street address using the consignee's name and Zip Code. For example, if the mail's address delivery field indicated that the mail was addressed to Jane Smith at P.O. Box 1234, Atlanta Ga., 30309, the commercial carrier would search a database to determine if a street address existed for “Jane Smith” within the 30309 zip code. If an alternative street address existed, the carrier would re-label the package bearing the alternative street address and deliver the mail piece to that address. This procedure often resulted in mail being delivered to the wrong address. Furthermore, it was often the case that the consignee's reason for obtaining a post office box was that the consignee did not want mail delivered to the alternative address. Moreover, locating an alternative address often proved difficult. Ultimately, if the carrier could not locate an alternative delivery address, or more than one alternative address was found, the carrier would have to resort to the second option, returning the mail piece to the consignor.
In light of these problems, there exists a need in the art for a system and method by which a commercial carrier can facilitate the deliver of mail to a post office box. The present invention solves these limitations by providing such a method.